Mohammad Nayeem Teli

This professor has taught: BIOI602, CMSC116, CMSC131, CMSC250, CMSC320, CMSC351, CMSC398O, CMSC421, CMSC422, CMSC426, DATA120, DATA320, DATA602, DATA606, ENEE140, ENTS699, MSML602, MSML605

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Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC116 Anonymous 05/27/2025	Spring 2025 Pros: - Lectures are ok, topics are somewhat interesting. - 1 midterm + 1 final, both of which are open notes and only MCQ. - 5 MCQ quizzes, closed notes, a team project, and an interview assignment, all of which are relatively straightforward - Overall laid back class with little homework. - Homeworks are just reading reflections, fairly easy Cons: - N/A Exam Statistics: - Midterm: Mean: 82, Median 86.66 - Final: Mean: 94, Median: 94.66
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/24/2025	Nice guy, but BORING! I stopped coming to class because I just couldn't take it any more. I can't say I learned much. I don't recommend him for CMSC250.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/21/2025	I took 320 with Teli and I really hated it because he spent like over half of it talking about machine learning topics instead of like the fundamentals of data science, and didn't teach it well because he was kind of just rushing through everything. However, 422 is (obviously) a machine learning focused course, so this is really Teli's bread and butter and he was able to spend more time on each topic and I got a much better understanding of the topics than I did when he rushed through it in 320. He's actually a pretty solid lecturer and most of the time I was able to keep up. Towards the end of the semester when we started getting into more advanced topics, he started really losing me, but he didn't test much of that material on his exams. His exams were pretty easy, but it was kind of random what topics he chose to go really in depth on, and sometimes these were topics that he didn't emphasize much in class. He allows cheat sheets for the exams, which is really nice. The class also had a handful of online ELMS quizzes on more of the mathematical side of ML. We had three coding projects where most of the code was given to us and it was more of a guided exercise where you wrote pretty minimal code to "complete" it. They were really easy, but honestly I wished we had at least one project where we really got to play around with the cool machine learning things that we were learning, and I felt that there was a little too much stress on the conceptual and mathematical stuff rather than the actual implementation. The workload for this class was overall really light, which I did enjoy but I think there was room for more to enhance learning without making it too much. I think Teli is one of the better CMSC upper level professors, so I'd suggest him for any upper levels that he's teaching. He's not my favorite instructor and I have my qualms, but it was overall a good experience and I do think I learned a good bit that I'll be able to use in the future.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC116 Anonymous 05/19/2025	The class was interesting and the professor was pretty good with how he showcased projects. However, the actual exams you are just left with sections to look at with no guide.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/17/2025	250 is really easy and do able with Teli. And he teaches really well in my opinion too. He dumbs down the concepts really well, and I love his recordings, it's good quality. Quizzes and exams are also really easy with Teli. It does require decent amount of studying for it, but you should do well on his exams in the end. Homeworks can be a bit challenging but that's do able too. Overall, TAKE TELI! He really teaches well, he's knowledgeable, plus easy class overall with him.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli DATA120 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/02/2025	Chill AF one credit Python class, but credit to him for putting together a lot of lectures and slides.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli MSML602 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/24/2025	He was okay in my opinion. One thing I hated is that there was a quiz in every class for the entire semester. Each quiz added to the final grade so missing class was never an option. Almost forgot to mention this. On the first day of classes, he informed us that we would have a semester-long final project instead of a final exam and we rejoiced (obviously) but the celebrations were short-lived because this dude had been trying to oversmart us all along: he conducted the midterm 2 weeks before the finals week, which meant we had to study almost the entire syllabus for the "midterm". I did not mind studying everything for this midte- scratch that, final exam but I did scoff at the way the class had been trojan-horsed. That aside, prof is a cool guy. He will always try to clear your doubts. Always records his lectures and provides any and every material that he uses to teach (THANK YOU). Quizzes mostly had whatever he covered in class.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/18/2025	While the topics taught in class were a bit difficult to digest, the recordings were very helpful for me to go back and review. Exams were fair, as we were allowed a formula sheet. Office hours were also great.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/17/2025	First off, I want to say that Professor Teli is a pretty good lecturer. The supplemental textbook and the slides were helpful. Project code distributions were not the best with some files containing deprecated functions. Once you were past that, the projects were pretty fun and helpful in understanding the material. The midterm was quite fair, and you pretty much knew what was going to be asked. The final, however, was quite bad. First off, when asked what would be on the final, he said “everything” and that we should “practice applying algorithms to data.” Fair enough. However, these directions turned out to be quite misleading. The exam itself consisted of only a couple of primarily theoretical questions that covered maybe 30% of the overall material. One question was really tough and mostly off-topic. So, if you didn’t study that particular type of question on that particular topic, you were out of luck. Preparation-wise, there were no practice problems (only a single final sample). This lack of direction made preparation for the final quite frustrating, as you were always in doubt if you did enough practice. To top it all off, he effectively hid the answer key from everybody and said we need “to make an appointment to see it after the break.” I mean, how can you learn from mistakes and submit a regrade request if you never saw the answer to the problem? Overall, it was a decent and useful class, but the logistics of the final made it frustrating toward the end.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/05/2025	Easy class imo. Easy exams, pretty straightforward. You have to go to discussion on wednesdays because there are quizzes that are about class topic the week before. His lectures are recorded and it is not mandatory to go to class and they are some what boring but really helpful. Homeworks are long and can be tricky but start early and spend time on them and understand it, they will help alot with exams. Highly recommend taking 250 with him!
Mohammad Nayeem Teli Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/21/2024	Teli as a lecturer is phenomenal. He goes through all the steps for the math (remember, 422 is a math course for ml concepts, not learning ml coding toolkits/libraries) and it really helps. Definitely make sure you know your math fundamentals and how to apply AND derive the formulas you learn in class. Midterm was really easy in my opinion, but final was wayyyy harder; final brought me down 2 letter grades. Projects take some time but are not too complicated, though the directions are a little unclear sometimes. Also, response times on Piazza vary a lot. He records lectures and posts both those and in class notes so you don't need to go to class, but I'd still recommend doing so.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A cramschoolchai 12/21/2024	Great Professor. Overall fair exams and quizzes. HW can be tricky and long sometimes, but both the hw and the lectures help prepare you for exams in this course. Teli is definitely one of my favorite teachers Ive had so far, hes the best. Highly recommend taking 250 with him!
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2024	Very difficult class, but class grading breakdown makes it relatively easy to get an A. First midterm is manageable if you took and remember some stuff from CMSC320 and watch lectures, but the concepts on the final are very very challenging and you probably need to read the textbook to understand everything. With that being said the final was overall ok (75 average) and there was only 1 question (30 points) that was crazy hard. Both midterm and final are 20%, projects (3) are 40%, and canvas homeworks with multiple attempts are 20%. So if you do pretty well on the first midterm, get high grades on the easy group projects, and get 100s on the homeworks you are pretty much playing with house money on the final. As a professor, he is solid. Records lectures but sometimes does not explain concepts well as he moves very fast through some very confusing and difficult topics. Wish he showed a little more personality in lectures, but everyone is different (he is no Nelson!)
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2024	Best CMSC250 professor that you can take hands down. Pros: - All lectures are recorded and the notes are all posted along with the lectures - Exams are very fair and easy imo and practice exams are provided - Grading for exams was pretty lenient too - Quizzes can be hit or miss but TA's graded very lightly on mistakes so it was a nice grade boost - 2% extra credit assignment for the final grade!!!! - Teli is just an amazing professor and an amazing human being, if you don't take 250 with him you're missing out Cons: - Homeworks can be graded a little harsh in my experience (this is for the grading TA's, not towards Teli) I would not rather have taken this class with any other professor.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting a W Anonymous 12/18/2024	This man somehow makes every topic he talks about the most boring thing in the world. I took this class because I thought I liked machine learning, but now, I'm not even sure if I like myself. I dreaded every Tuesday and Thursday knowing I would have to attend Teli's class. Every class, I could feel the life drain out of me. All I wanted was for him to stop talking, and when he did, the life came back. I swear the material is not that bad, it's just that his lectures are so egregiously slow and mind-numbing. He spends so long on one topic or answering one question, that you forget what the topic or question even was. I ended up dropping this class with a W not because it was hard, but because of how boring it was. He is honestly very easy, and it is very easy to get an A on everything, it's just that this class sucks. Perhaps I will take 422 in the future, just with a different professor.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2024	Professor Teli is an amazing lecturer - who is very passionate about computer logic and machine learning. That energy is passed on to the students in lecture. His handwritten notes and recorded lectures are amazing. His proofs can be rather long compared to that of other professors such as Fawzi, but to make sense. His homeworks can be hard at times but that is for any classes. The weekly quizzes are no the hardest and test you on the material and make sure that you are keeping up to speed. His posts his dicussion worksheets with solutions and is very open ears and wants every student to succeed. His exams are just like the practice and practice he gives, so use those as practice and you will get an A. His pace is slower than other professors who seemed to complete a little more content but other than that no complains. TLDR: Nice person, Great Teacher, Exams are not hard just do the practice.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli DATA120 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/11/2024	great videos and good assignments
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/09/2024	He’s not perfect, but he’s close enough! I have no complaints with him as a professor that are enough to drop him a star. He’s the ideal 250 professor
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2024	Good Lecturer, sometimes class can be a little boring. Lectures are recorded and quizzes and exams are fair. Pretty straightforward.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/13/2024	- All lectures are recorded. - I didn't attend any lectures. I only attended for quizzes and exams. - Watching the lectures and understanding questions covered in the videos is enough to ace the quizzes. - Exams are fair; I scored 100 on the first, and the second was straightforward.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC421 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/19/2024	Maybe Teli is okay for regular semester classes, but his handling of CMSC421 was quite poor. For our first project, it was impossible for us to actually gather all the data because he was asking us to run exp-time algorithms for (relatively) large graph sizes. For example, he said he wanted us to run algs on graph sizes from 5, 10, 15, ... up until about 100 or so, but in reality, running a 15 node graph took like an hour each or more. He then cleared up the day before the project was due that we could change up the increments and the bounds of the graph sizes (so our group did increments of 1 to get more data). The piazza answers he gives are not much better either. Given that the project descriptions are already either misleading or just poorly written, you would hope that he clears things up on the piazza, but no, he responds after a day or so, and usually in a few words that hardly string together a sentence. You have to really keep nudging him in the followups before you can get a straight answer. The final exam itself was pretty awful, the average was a 70%, so hopefully he curves it, but for now we still aren't sure.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC421 Expecting a C Anonymous 08/18/2024	Terrible professor. Do not take him. Had him for CMSC 250 and CMSC 421 (summer). The class was entirely online with the exception of exams. He was not punctual with lecture postings, rarely responded to students on piazza, and if he did respond, it would be one word answers. He did not show up to either the midterm or final. Exams were terribly worded.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 08/04/2024	Trust he is better than Fawzi.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/17/2024	Teli's teaching style worked for me. He goes through the math on paper in a step-by-step manner, making it very clear to understand even for someone like me who last took lin alg and calculus years ago. The exams can vary in difficulty a lot. The midterm's average was a B, but the final's average was a D. There was no curve for the class in the end. My advice is to try and write every formula down on the cheatsheet for the exam, and I do mean everything. it can save you time on the exam. The projects were not that difficult if you are proficient in Python, but they were time consuming. The only criticism I had for the class was that it sometimes took a while to get a response on Piazza, if you do get one at all (usually a day later).
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/10/2024	pretty good professor, but its a very hard class. i took it in the summer and the lectures were prerecorded so you can do it on your own pace. projects and homeworks/quizzes were all pretty easy. however, the exams were very very hard. the midterm was not like the practice midterm, and the final exam was not like the practice final. the final exam average was a 60%. i don't know how I ended with an A. you really need to watch all the lectures and learn everything to do good on the exams, the practice exams are not enough. also, you can bring a cheet sheet to exams, so fit whatever you can on it.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/01/2024	Good teacher. Lectures can be hard to follow. Exams are doable just study and do the practice test. Practice isn't like the exam but it touches the major topics (usually you can count on 1 of every major topic being there). Projects are doable but sometimes the lack of grading criteria can be difficult.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC426 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/29/2024	Knows his stuff, but terrible at gauging how to effectively communicate it. Plus some of the worst administrative manners I've ever seen. Barely shows any interest in communicating with students outside of classes, and when you do manage to get a conversation started, he's eager to trivialize/dismiss your concerns and get rid of you as quickly as possible.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/31/2024	I do like Teli, because he really seems like he wants to help and he wants his students succeed. That being said, he is HORRIBLE at explaining concepts. His fatal flaw is that when he introduces a new topic, he doesn't explain the most fundamental parts of it, and just starts talking about it as if we already knew the basics, which practically nobody did. He was constantly asking if anyone had any questions to gauge understanding, but it was at a point where everyone was so confused that they didn't even know what to ask, which he mistook as understanding. He also expected a deep knowledge of linear algebra for the majority of this class, which is NOT a prerequisite for this class and left a lot of students in the dust. TAKE MATH240 BEFORE TAKING CMSC320 WITH TELI. I also have heard that other professors make this class easier. This class is meant to be a class in data science, but most of the content was about machine learning. While ML is an important part of data science, he glazed over other important data science topics, like statistics. He's really unhelpful on Piazza, answering unclearly most of the time with no detail. His assignment structure is also not the best, with two closed-note midterm exams through the semester. The first tested really obscure knowledge about specific data science Python libraries and functions within them, which was awful, but the exams were fair besides that. He allows a two-sided cheat sheet, so the midterms were essentially "How tightly can you cram everything on the cheat sheet?" rather than actually testing knowledge. Projects weren't super bad, but a few times he included some topic that we didn't learn about or cover thoroughly enough, leaving everyone guessing. He grades extremely leniently, so you'll likely do well regardless, but you'll be super confused and stressed. He also crammed a bunch of assignments into the last few weeks of the semester, including 3 quizzes, a project, a midterm, and a final project, which was completely overwhelming. I do feel like I learned a lot, but I probably could've learned much more with much better understanding if I took it with another professor.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC426 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/25/2024	I don't know about his other classes, but he's not a great instructor for computer vision. His presentation style in lectures is at times impossible to follow. He spends half the class diving into deep mathematical derivations, but barely takes any time to build the bridge between the math and the broader concepts. If you value your grade, definitely don't take him. He makes mistakes on the solutions to his own assignments all the time (happened multiple times this semester) but expects you to be impeccable somehow. He doesn't seem interested in rising to the standards he has for the people he's teaching. And communication is very much not a priority for him. His guidelines and expectations change throughout the semester, making it hard to pin down how you're doing in the class. Multiple people have to make multiple posts on Piazza before he even considers responding, and even then his responses have an undertone of condescension. The only reason I'll give him two stars is because you can tell that he knows his stuff. Just isn't great at teaching it to others, in my opinion.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2024	Teli likes to fill his lectures with a lot of content, and once you lose track of how he got there, you're completely lost. For me, it was really hard to pay attention and stay focused during the 1hr 15 min lecture. However, I will say that when I rewatched his lectures on panopto, it was extremely easier to learn the content than in class. He's not a bad teacher. He will walk you through stuff, but what I hated was he went into some math and calculation on papers. I could tell that the class was very disorganized though, because we only ended up having elms quizzes (10% of our grade) in the last 3-4 weeks of the semester rather than throughout (but they were helpful). Exams aren't too bad if you rewatch content from lectures and you also get a cheat sheets . Projects were kinda long in that some questions confused you.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2024	Great guy and great professor. CMSC320 is an interesting class, especially if you're on the M.L. track. This guy is a genius in this field and very approachable in office hours and after lecture. Took him for CMSC426 at the same time. Exams are relatively easy, though for the first midterm make sure you really review some of the functions from various Python libraries. After a dumpster fire of a semester with Cliff, Teli has restored my faith in the CS department. Will be taking my third course with him next semester.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli DATA120 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2024	Super easy online course for a free A. CMSC131 is harder than this.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/18/2024	Holy yapper of yapville. He just keeps on talking about god knows what. Puts you straight to sleep. Most people stopped coming to lecture because it was so worthless. Each lecture is around 50-100+ slides so have fun with that :) Class is really easy using chatgpt. Exams were open note and aren't too bad if you are sitting next to friends!
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Anonymous 05/04/2024	Midterm 1 practice was not similar whatsoever to the actual exam. Projects and quizzes are all fair, but exam was a joke.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/30/2024	He's very okay. Very boring lecturer, about 3 weeks into the semester, only about 15% of the class shows up. The projects descriptions can be really confusing, but they're graded very leniently, and it's easy to get 100%. The exam was kind of lame, since it was mostly quizzing us on random numpy functions. We got to bring in our own cheat sheet, so the exam really just tested us on what we remembered to put on our cheat sheet or not. I wouldn't recommend taking him, but he's not bad. It's a fairly easy class, just paying attention is the hard part. Are you following this??
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/29/2024	Teli is SO boring in lecture. Not engaging at all, just reads off the lecture slides which are 50+ slides long yet only half or less is actual material. NO ORGANIZATION IN THIS CLASS WHATSOEVER. Like there are no folders to organize anything... idk why it's really not that hard. There is hardly any communication. THE PROFESSOR AND THE TAs DON'T CHECK PIAZZA. Took this course Spring 2024 and All THE TAs SUCK. They never show up to their office hours on time or cancel or delay their hours on the few days before a project is due (so you basically can't get in touch with anyone in person OR online over Piazza.) Information on ELMS and class website contradict each other. Overall so unorganized, unhelpful, and a waste of time. With that being said, if you self-teach or memorize things for exams, you'd be fine. But there are way better CS electives out there so I don't recommend this class, at least with Teli if you can help it.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Anonymous 04/29/2024	Crams in all theory, projects are a mess, this class is the definition of self study everything
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC426 Expecting a C Anonymous 04/02/2024	He speeds through content, only cares to explain the technicals and math and not general concepts that would make the math easier to absorb, and lecture structure is confusing and often logically backwards, likely because he splices slide decks together from other classes he's taught. It makes easy content difficult to grasp, and it makes difficult content impossible to even get started with. And there's no book accompanying this course, so you're stuck with his scattered, lightning fast lectures, whatever you can find on Youtube, and absolutely no practice (I mean it -- none) with the content on exams. His high score is absolutely undeserved (and baffling to me). I feel like I know less now than I did walking into the class.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/28/2024	The content is difficult but Teli structures it in a way so that it won't take too much time. If you look through the slides before the exams they are doable, and he genuinely cares about his students.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Anonymous 03/28/2024	he's nice but i haven't been able to pay attention in a single lecture the entire semester they're so dry and content dense so i've had to self study projects aren't hard but they're tedious practice exam was not helpful for exam 1 (formatted pretty different from the actual exam), a lot of the exam came down to guessing what to write on the allowed note sheet because it wasn't clear how much detail we needed to remember for the different parts of the sheer amount of content we covered
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Anonymous 03/10/2024	What are his practice exams lol. useless, terrible
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Anonymous 03/08/2024	I learned nothing in this class
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/20/2024	Teli is a great lecturer and cares about his students and their problems. He takes feedback and tries to make the course better for everyone. None of his exams required a curve and he also gave us a extra credit assignment at the end. He wants you to succeed and takes time to respond to everyone's questions. One of the best professors I've had so far. The only problem I have is that I feel he didn't cover some useful topics in structural induction (like trees and graphs) and never tested it on the exams. At the end felt slightly less prepared or CMSC351 than people in other professor's classes.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/08/2024	Teli is a good professor. You can tell that he cares about the students and whether they understand the topic. But sometimes the way he explains the topics just doesn't make sense and he repeats his explanations. But his homework and handwritten notes are amazing and consistent. 250 is a course in which if you have seen problems like this or know problems like this because of competitive math, this class would be easy, but if you are a person who struggles with proofs and logic you have to put more time into the class. Everything else about the tests and midterms are amazing about teli but the weekly quizzes can be a hit or miss because getting one question wrong can ruin your grade for the quiz. But he is a good professor recommend him.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/01/2024	I posted a midsemester review of this class back in October 2023 so this is a review for the class in Fall 2023 semester now that it's over (apologies for being a little late). My feedback for this course now is basically the same as the prior review I made. The first thing I would like to add are that the final project was a little challenging (extra credit section was interesting) and time-consuming so as always, make sure you start your projects early. Second, the final exam was cumulative and relatively similar to the practice final we got. There was also a final exam review session via Zoom, which greatly helped. This class will be challenging from a mathematical standpoint so make sure your calculus, probability, statistics & linear algebra foundation is strong. Other than that, the class was well-organized. I still recommend all students to take this class with Prof Teli.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/01/2024	Good teacher. Pretty reasonable midterms and finals. If you do homework well you'll be able to do well
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/30/2023	Good lecturer.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/24/2023	Teli is such a great professor! He posts his notes and records for every lecture, which is super helpful if you skip. He does plenty of examples during lecture and is great at explaining concepts. He has a few homeworks throughout the semester that weren't too difficult and he gives at least a week to do them. Weekly quizzes in discussion aren't too bad, but they are kinda 50/50 in difficulty in my opinion and are worth 15% of our grade. Though I think if I studied a bit more for them they would've been a lot easier for me. We do a lot of practice questions in discussion, so going to them is very helpful and having a good TA can really impact how well you understand the material. Exams were fairly easy and he provides practice exams which are pretty similar to the actual exam. Overall I really liked this class and I highly recommend taking Teli.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/22/2023	All the information he goes over, from his lecture slides to his lecture notes, are readily available for any student wanting to look at them on Canvas. He's also very understanding if you are running into any issues directly related or unrelated to the course. His homeworks can be tricky sometimes, and I do feel like TAs sometimes grade the homeworks too strictly, but most of the time, all of the questions are fair and straightforward. His exams were not hard, but some questions were formatted in a way that you may not get any partial credit (which is what happened to me on the final), and in a class where most of your overall grade comes from your exam performances, you need to be a bit aware of any slight curveballs that he could throw at you. I felt like his quizzes were a hit or miss sometimes, because for some reason my discussion section did really poorly compared to the class average, even though my TA really helped build our understanding on all the topics we covered in class. The TA you get will play a big role into if you understand the content more or not, which I think Teli could work on a bit (since his explanations to any questions or his thought process when going through examples in lectures can be a little bit confusing). Dr. Teli gave an extra credit assignment (adding a possible 2% on our grades), and bumped anyone <0.5% below the cutoffs (that he slightly adjusted from the typical cutoffs UMD uses).
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Anonymous 12/22/2023	He lectures too fast but hes pretty good besides that he exams pretty fair and all
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2023	Had very reasonable exams and lecture slides were quite helpful
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2023	Almost everything in this class is fair: there were some points where homework questions were somewhat strangely worded, but in general, I have no complaints regarding any of the course material. The lectures were phenomenal; even if you didn't attend them, the notes/slides/recordings posted are more than enough to help you through this course. The only real drawback (or fear I guess) that I had during this course was the fact that all of the tests together were 70% of the total course grade (though tbh this may be due to me not really being adjusted to college), but all the tests were really fair as well. Overall, would easily take him again.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/20/2023	Teli is one of the most underrated professors in the CS department, he's probably one of the best I've had in my two years. While proofs aren't for some, he wants everyone to do well. He stops numerous times and makes sure all our questions are answered. He posts all lecture slides, examples, and discussion worksheets (sometimes with solutions) so that you understand the concepts and his thought process and are prepared for the weekly quizzes and midterms. The quiz and exam questions are very fair and reflect exactly what we go over in the lecture. My only recommendation is for him to be clearer on what the final will cover. I was balancing other advanced Math and CS courses with extensive material and I was told the final would be cumulative when it didn't turn out to be. While I excelled at most topics, the final felt more like a third midterm but it was weighted a lot more and had newer topics some people struggled with. Other than that, he's a great professor and I'm sure this is a small issue he'll fix/clarify in future semesters.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli DATA120 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/19/2023	I have no idea about the prof. The class itself was quite easy, especially if you already know programming basics. Just some of the quizzes tend to be unclear/vague which made me lose 1-2 points here and there. But, pretty free A.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2023	Teli is actually the greatest professor I've had. His exams are fair, the TAs are very chill, the lectures aren't boring whatsoever and he records them. He also scans his notes from class, so its ok to skip lecture. Weekly quizzes aren't bad, but the homeworks can be a pain sometimes. He's made this course very easy for us overall. Also the final was not cumulative, so it was only on things we learned after the 2nd midterm. Its 2 midterms and a "final". He gives out practice exams with the answer key for each exam and they are exactly what you need to know for the exam. Finally, he also gave an extra credit assignment that was very easy and short. If you do it, you get a free 2% boost to your grade.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2023	Great professor, honestly one of the best i’ve had at umd. Exams are super fair and he makes the class very manageable. Would highly recommend!
Mohammad Nayeem Teli DATA120 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2023	Straightforward and easy python class.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/15/2023	Haven't taken another professor for CMSC250, but I can assure you that if you take Teli you are in good hands. He records lectures, posts the notes from the lectures, and he is just a great guy (both as a teacher and a person). His lectures are engaging and he tells fun stories sometimes. Although I am expecting a C, that is just me being a bad student, if you even try a little in this class, then you will be fine. Just make sure you go to the lecture or at least watch the recordings, go to discussions as they go over what you learned from the lecture with examples. You do have HW in this class, which from my experience it was not too hard, just a lot of problems. There are some problems on the HW that I assume is there to make you think more about the concepts, but generally you won't see the harder HW questions on exams or quizzes (from my memory). Quizzes are easy assuming you attend discussions as they go over problems that you may see.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/14/2023	He is great, provides you with everything you need to succeed. Exam averages were Midterm 1: 83 Midterm 2: 92 (They are mostly similar to HW/ Practice exam) Homework's are a bit challenging sometimes but you get plenty of time to do them as they are mostly weekly. I would recommend going to office hours and asking the TA's if you are doing something correctly and they are mostly helpful. (Most can also be found online) There are quizzes every Wednesday on the material from the prior week and are mostly easy. He also records and posts his notes. Is very quick and efficient with email/piazza responses. Also gave us an assignment for 2% extra credit at the of the semester. My TA Siyuan Peng was great and super chill. I know his reviews are low, but as someone who is not the greatest at math I did very well in his class. There isn't much work that needs to be done if you are pairing it up with something like 216 or 132.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/14/2023	Pretty much agree with all the recent comments about Teli as well. He's a great professor and really good at explaining the math behind all the ML-related concepts taught in this class in an understandable, step-by-step manner. The math discussions can get dry but it's a really important part of succeeding in this field, and Teli does an excellent job working through the derivations and matrix calculations that may make students overwhelmed. If you have a chance to take this (or honestly any) CS class with Teli, I would highly recommend doing so.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/10/2023	Very boring lectures, and the organization of files on canvas is a complete disaster. I wouldn't have much of problem with either of these on their own, but together it means that the class is very difficult to learn, not because of the difficulty of the class, but because searching for information that you need for a homework is difficult (e.g. what the definition of something, like divisibility, is). Quizzes and tests seem pretty fair to me, but grading is sometime very arbitrary, focusing on very unrelated concepts to what you would need in future classes, like enforcing writing the type of proof you are using, or other details that are not important to the concepts as a whole.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2023	Professor Teli is decent. His lecture slides are helpful, and he sometimes tells fun stories during class to make the students engaged. My only complaint would be that sometimes he goes over proofs a little messily, but the TAs help give us a more systematic approach. The probability part was also messy, but overall, I think he tries his best to help his students, and it shows. We had two midterms, and quizzes every Wednesday at the end of class. His homework is reasonable. He also gave us rule sheets and some formulas to use during the exams.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/05/2023	He's great tbh. Records and gives reasonable assignments.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/29/2023	really underrated professor, like the person underneath me said, i feel like most the bad reviews came from when Teli first started teaching this class. His lectures are basically him going over topics and then doing a bunch of problems/proofs by hand so you can see how and what his thought process is. He posts the lectures slides and his work as well as recording lectures so its not an issue if you skip. He does a good job of answering any questions you have. He does go a little fast sometimes, but he always makes sure to ask if everyone understands. There are quizzes and homeworks roughly every week or so. The quizzes aren't too bad as long as you ask your TA to go over sample questions. The homeworks can be tedious but you have plenty of time to do them. I will say that having a good TA can be a make or break for this class, as discussions are pretty important to digesting the material. Another thing is that the exams aren't too bad, but it feels like theres always one question thats weirdly different from any other problem we've done. Doesn't make it impossible, but can be kinda annoying. Would def reccomend this prof tho
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/29/2023	I don't know why his rating is so low but he is one of the best professors I've had so far. Records everything and posts notes writing during lecture. In my opinion the quizzes were easy, exams were extremely easy, and homework is fair. Only bad things I can say is that sometimes the homework questions were tricky or some questions on the exam were unclear. Definitely take him.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/29/2023	I was really scared coming into this class especially seeing his rating was at 3 stars but I would reccommend taking him if you can. He records lectures and posts notes which I found very helpful so I could go back and see points that I misunderstood. The pace isn't too fast and he really wants students to understand the material and is open to questions. His exams and quizzes were for the most part fair and easier than the homeworks. In addition he provides practice material for exams. The homeworks could sometimes be time consuming but I think you usually have more than a week to work on them. He also connects the material to how you may use it in upper level classes such as algorithms which I appreciated. My only issue with the class is that it seems as if most of the TAs did not have Teli when taking the class so the style in which they solved problems differed from his which led to some confusion for me personally. It also seems as if some TAs didn't really know the material when I went to office hours. Other than that I highly reccommend Teli for this course. I think previous bad reviews were likely due to him not having taught the course before but it seems as if hes gotten the hang of it and the course is well organized now.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/28/2023	Extremely fair exams and homeworks. Just do the hw problems, quiz and the practice exams before the exams and you’ll do well.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/18/2023	Teli is a great guy! he gives extremely fair exams and quizzes. The only downside is that you have to do well in those quizzes as they are 15% of your grade and he doesn't drop the lowest quiz. His homeworks doesn't take long to do and are very fair.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting a B+ Justacoder 11/16/2023	He is a fair professor who does want his students to succussed. The projects where tedious but straightforward and the exams where usually fair. Only complaint is that he is not a great lecturer, can put you to sleep and it is easy to get lost. Lectures are posted before class so your better off read them and teaching yourself. Other than that fine professor.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC422 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/19/2023	This is a midsemester review for the class in Fall 2023. I think Prof Teli has done a great job teaching this class so far. He posts the lecture slides and notes relatively quickly, does a good job at answering questions within lectures, and uploads the lecture recordings. He and his TAs are also very responsive on Piazza and provided a practice midterm before the actual exam. The HW quizzes in ELMS do a good job of reinforcing the concepts for the ML models we've covered and we get 1 week to do each of them. The lecture examples and HW problems definitely help in preparing for the midterm. I thought it was reasonable. The projects are interesting and we get about 2-3 weeks to work on each them. I'd recommend starting the projects early. The HW quizzes are automatically graded and you get a few attempts to work on each one, which I think is very nice. The TAs and Prof Teli are very helpful and understanding in their in-person OH. One concern I have regarding the class is there not online OH in addition to the in-person ones as there probably are students not always on campus that could benefit from them. Another is that there are no late submissions allowed so it is important to get all your assignments done on time. Aside from that, I think Prof Teli overall has done a great job and he has been very organized with this class. I took 320 online in Summer 2023 and his class was also very organized. I think a lot of the reviews are very negative towards Teli's teaching as a professor and he is very underrated. I highly recommend you take a class with Teli if possible (preferably 320 or 422).
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a C- Anonymous 09/14/2023	The Instructor is alright, however whats the use if he doesn't know how to hire TAs. My TA was Yue a grad student, and you can ask anybody in CMSC 250 in her discussion. An absolute waste of UMD money, she doesn't know how to teach or explain and leaves for the bathroom majority of the time. This was detrimental for my academics as I really needed support when learning new contexts as a commuter I did not have a study group. For context I am a straight A student in CS but Teli teaches the overview and concepts but doesnt delve in deep into applications of the concept. Which is understandable as that is why CMSC250 has discussions. If your TA is not doing his/her job please dont wait till the end of the semester to complain make sure u get your grade right and ur academics first.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/20/2023	I think Professor Teli did a great job with organizing the class. The lecture materials were all in 1 place, the directions for the 4 projects were very clear and not too challenging, the lecture quizzes weren't that bad, the final tutorial instructions were very clear and examples were provided. We were also given practice questions to prepare for the midterm and final and they were relatively similar to the actual exams. We were also given the opportunity to have 1-page cheat sheets during the exams, which I really liked. The lecture recordings he made went over the slides and handwritten examples of the topics. The TAs also had plenty of online OH and they were willing to answer any questions I had and offer any assistance. Professor Teli is also a nice and understanding professor overall. This class also helps you prepare for 422 since 422 essentially builds upon it and goes over these topics in depth with a stronger emphasis on ML. It helped me refresh my statistics and linear algebra skills. The only things I will mention that could have been improved were 1) Responding to Piazza posts and questions a little sooner and 2) Slowing down the lecture pacing. I'm aware that since this was a 6-week course, the content that would normally be covered in a 15-week course had to be covered more than twice faster but that's not Prof Teli's fault. I understand the concerns that the other reviews have regarding the lecture pacing and do agree that you should have some background in statistics and linear algebra and calculus but the class more touches upon the high-level concepts instead of delving into them too deeply. If you haven't taken statistics and linear algebra, then it may be a little problematic. Other than that, I really liked this class and look forward to taking 422 with Teli in the fall. Would strongly recommend taking a class with Teli but if you prefer another professor, that is also understandable.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli Expecting a C Anonymous 08/20/2023	By far the worst professor for 320. The class has a low amount of busy work so if you have an existing amount of prior stats or ML knowledge you probably will get an A in this course. Otherwise expect to be in for a long struggle because this professor will not put an ounce of effort. Communication issues, unclear expectations, and short turnaround times for testing new material were commonplace due to him attempting to teach the course virtually from an entire hemisphere away. Lectures were jargon-heavy and jumped around so often that it is even difficult to review my notes. Also, as someone who took STAT400 and Calc 1/2 three years ago, I think that not listing these as pre-requisites and expecting us to learn the entirety of their material in about a week for the final is simply unacceptable. This is one of only Bs in a Computer Science course at this school. Professor Teli: please do better for future students and in the meantime avoid this professor like the plague.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/01/2023	He was a bit too quick early on in week 1, but he slowed down and really went in depth, took out a pen and paper and gave great examples. He really is a gifted teacher because he knows what the student is thinking and explains what is necessary to bridge to the jump of understanding. First ML class that I actually understood what was happening. The only problem with this class is that it relies on stat and linear algebra heavily, but stat and linear algebra are not requirements for the class. That's not his fault though that the department that made that decision. I highly recommend this course but you will get the most out of this if you have taken Calc 1, linear algebra and stat as recently and havent forgotten too much.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting a C Anonymous 07/27/2023	The last review that I can see was from 7/14. Today is 7/27 and I can say that the situation has gotten worse. Topics have gotten harder and has moved on to talking about about STAT400 material and linear algebra. These two courses are not prerequisites and he assumes that you all should know everything about these classes. He does not give you a debriefer on these topics, so if you don't remember content from these classes, you are out of luck. He does not explain very effectively: his slides use short hands that I cannot understand, his handwriting is very hard to read, he provides no examples for any material that we are learning, (just rants on a hard topic, and expects us to understand with no concrete examples). I had teli for 250 and he was real solid, but this class.... I hiiiighly encourage against him.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting a W Anonymous 07/14/2023	Lectures way too fast. Doesn't explain anything in depth. Uses a mouse to draw things illegibly on the screen. Clicks through slides like its a race. Halfway explains a concept, then says we'll come back to it later, never comes back to it. Tells you he won't go through certain slides, and to review them on your own time. Why put them in the slides then? He really needs to look at what it means to teach and see how he can reform his approach. Teaching is explaining a simple concept -> show an example -> wait for understanding -> show a slightly harder example -> wait for understanding -> explain a harder concept -> show an example.. repeat. He never waits for understanding and sometimes doesn't even explain the concept. I am here to learn and 100% willing. I feel like I was scammed out of the $1000 I payed to take this summer course, because he didn't even teach it. Slow down, seriously. Lecturing is NOT a race.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/01/2023	I would not recommend taking CMSC320 with Professor Teli at all costs (take with Max instead of anyone else). This class now has a midterm, a final project, weekly closed-note quizzes, and a final exam. Teli's lectures were dense with material and he failed to keep his students engaged. Most people would just be on their laptops or their phones waiting for the quiz at the end of class. The quizzes were on some reading tangentially related to the class, and they would either be really easy or really hard. It would often require you to remember random facts or sentences from the article. The first midterm of this class was a total mess. There was a sample midterm given, but the actual exam was nothing like it. You were allowed to bring a cheat sheet, but that didn't matter. It was essentially random python trivia about random inbuilt python, pandas, numpy, or data-cleaning techniques/commands. If you didn't have it on your cheat sheet, you would not be able to answer the question. These commands had nothing to do with class or the projects. It also included topics that were briefly mentioned in class, not really in the class slides, and that question would be work 20% of the midterm. Almost fully random, the best way to classify this midterm is like a history test, but your textbook is the whole internet. Good luck. The final was better. I believe he understood what he did from the first midterm, so he made the final closer to the practice final and kept it related to the class content. This however didn't fully make up for the first midterm, because we didn't know what to expect and it could have easily been just as hard/random. Projects were straightforward and all were group based. Grading was inconsistent - your luck of the draw of what TA you got. Essentially, this class no longer teaches you "data science" and is closer to a history/overview course. It provides a lot more stress than is needed (with the midterms, quizzes, and final) and Professor Teli makes it a lot more random than it should be. I would recommend taking it with a professor who has better grading policies and doesn't have midterms like Professor Teli. Professor Teli is very knowledgeable about the subject, but when it comes to teaching it, he could use a lot of work.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/09/2023	While taking CMSC250 with Professor Mohammad Nayeem Teli last year, I encountered some difficulties with the course structure and materials. I believe that Professor Teli may have been assigned to teach classes for which he is not entirely qualified or knowledgeable, as his first language is not English and his heavy accent made it difficult to understand him at times. Additionally, the wording of the tests and quizzes was poor and riddled with errors that could have been caught with adequate proofreading. Furthermore, I found Professor Teli's lectures to be long, rambling, and often disorganized, frequently losing track of the topic or failing to address key learning objectives. He also taught incorrect information and would often double down, claiming that he was teaching different ways of doing things. The projects in the course were terribly worded and ambiguous, requiring a lot of guesswork to understand what Professor Teli wanted us to do. The grading was inconsistent and required a lot of regrading to receive full credit.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B+ akl2025 02/20/2023	Professor Teli is fantastic. His lecture notes are neatly written and available on ELMS, and he provides clear explanations for every class. Additionally, his quizzes, midterms, and final exams are all fair, so I can't complain if I lose points due to my own mistakes. I also want to give a shoutout to my amazing TA, Emily Kaplitz. She's been incredibly helpful in our discussion section and has gone above and beyond to ensure that we all understand the material. I'm grateful for her support and guidance throughout the course.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Anonymous 02/09/2023	Idk bout assignments cause we never get any. So boring. My energy in this class is used to stay awake not to absorb content.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a C Anonymous 01/23/2023	Yes the grade I got is a C. However Professor Teli is an amazing professor, a professional with indepth knowledge on the subject matter. The lectures are very relaxed and full of information that is relevant to the CS field and exams. However in application, is where your TA comes into play where they go over applying the concepts learnt in class in various scenarios. My TA, Yue (I hate specifying names but I feel is nessecary) did not teach a single thing and showed absolutely no interest in the subject or the class. I feel students should speak up because at the end it is our grade that is hurt not the the TA's
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2022	Teli was doing so good in 250 this semester. His class is the most organized class compared to other classes that I was taking this semester. Quizzes were easy but sometimes challenging enough. Homework was not long and doable. He also gave us 1.5% extra credits which helped a lot. He revealed the cutoffs at the end and it's reasonable. Teli is also a good lecturer since I saw a lot ppl attend his lectures than in other classes. I got confused during his lecture sometimes, but it's acceptable.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/24/2022	Teli was super nice and a great lecturer. Midterms and Finals were extremely fair. Quizzes were difficult for me but the homeworks were great practice for it. I'd take his class again.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/23/2022	Probably one of the best lecturers for CMSC250, you can understand a concept very clearly after a lecture - I can't say that I have had this experience with many other lecturers. The main issues in this class is a lot of times he assigns homework's with concepts that we barely covered in class and it becomes a requirement to go to office hours just to figure out how to start the homeworks. He gave out an extra credit assignment in the end(did not drop any other assignments). The exams were also very fair.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/23/2022	Teli is not a bad professor himself, he's actually very straight forward in lectures sometimes. I do think at the start though, he did go a bit fast, but he's understanding when it comes to answering questions and office hours. However, his quizzes and exams are in my opinion a gamble, sometimes they are easy/fair, meaning it is the content taught in class but other times he has completely given us a homework and quiz that is entirely different from his lectures. At one point, lots of people crowded office hours because there were so many questions on this one homework. It definitely was inconsistent. As well, you have a quiz every week in-person unless stated otherwise, and as stated before, some were straight forward and others were completely different from what we learnt. The platforms being used are a bit annoying to, having to use Piazza, ELMS, and a whole different website (for the syllabus) is a bit disorganized. I also do want to mention that the grading felt very inconsistent on exams, so try your best to get a regrade request (for a valid reason of course).
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2022	His quizzes and tests are very fair, which is very nice. Homeworks are also relatively straightforward - very closely mirrors what is done in class. Unfortunately, CMSC250 as a course is sort of this weird Frankenstein of a math class trying to be taught to CS kids that don't really care about math, so the material is a bit weirdly presented, but that is by no means his fault. My biggest takeaway, though, was that he really really cares about people doing well, and is super accommodating. Someone asked he post the lecture slides before class, so he did just that. He gave an optional extra credit assignment at the end. Great dude.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/20/2022	You know, I didn't really pay attention in lecture but I somehow still learned by osmosis anyway. Very nice guy, I like his lectures even though I just fuck around or skip it altogether. The course material is pretty good, the homework is really good practice. The quizzes are a bit weirdly timed to the homework, where you might get quizzed on something before you get homework about it. Otherwise, he's really nice, and very solid. The only real problem I would say is that the final exam turned out to be exam 3, not really a final exam. But hey, whatever.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/20/2022	Teli is a good professor, but CMSC250 is definitely a difficult class. Attending lectures will fs help you. Plus, he records them so you can review for any times you missed or to prepare for exams. Discrete is different than a typical math class in that it's more proof and logic heavy, so expect a fair bit a writing as well. Also, if you have Emily as your TA, she is AMAZING. She's a god-send and helps explain topics so well during office hours to help students with the homework, and she also hosts review sessions before finals. I HEAVILY suggest her as a TA for the course.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/19/2022	Lectures are clear and organized and he always posts the recording and notes. Exams were always more than fair. Quizzes and Homeworks were a bit difficult but if you study a bit you'll be fine. Pretty solid professor if not a little boring at times.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2022	Explains things in an easy to understand way and gives us a lot of practice material.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/17/2022	i actually think he's an very underrated professor. although his class was a bit disorganized, he did a great job in making things make sense. Really nice dude, and I genuinely enjoyed this class even though it was hard at times.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/16/2022	take him
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/14/2022	Solid professor. Taught what needed to be taught, was very nice. Everything you'd want out of a professor. Homework could be a bit hard, but are fair. Quizzes and exams were totally fair so long as you studied the material. Plus he posts the lectures and slides, and gave us an extra-credit assignment after someone asked for one!
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/10/2022	Teli is a really good professor. Always willing to help, quizzes and exams are fair; not too hard if you study the material. He explains well and his lectures are very interesting. Would recommend!
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/08/2022	Prof. Teli is a solid professor. He goes over examples clearly in class, gets his TAs to grade homeworks and quizzes relatively quickly, and the material tested is fair game. Make sure you prepare for, complete, and understand your weekly homeworks and quizzes on time. Sometimes he can go too fast for you to take notes, but he always posts his lectures and lecture notes immediately after class.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/23/2022	Telli is a great professor: - Comes to class with a ton of energy, - Always willing to help and spend an hour if need be to clarify - Quizzes aren't bad actually, rules of inference/proofs is the only thing I should've doubled down on - Tests: are hit and miss but overall, I'd say they are decent and cover everything equally - HW: In the beginning of the year, very long and tedious but later in the year, dirt easy. - TAs: Mine was ok, but definitely be sure to learn his/her style. - Teaching: Good pace, lots of explaining, and writes the notes in real time so you can see the mechanics. Overall, Telli is an amazing professor with a great heart. I am taking him again in CMSC 320. He is a professor you want to stick around with. I hope this review helps! Harshit Garg
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 11/22/2022	Nice professor. Lecture is pretty nice, but can get boring at times. Harsh grading, though.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/15/2022	Nice guy, explains every concept and topic really well. Exams and quizzes can be tricky, and the homeworks are graded extremely harshly for some reason. My main pitfall is that he's not super great with responding to emails or anything like that, took him almost a week to respond to my email about rescheduling an exam I had to miss due to COVID. Otherwise pretty good professor!
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Anonymous 05/18/2022	While very knowledgeable about the topics the class was pretty bad. Quizzes had random content at times but exams were ok. Try to avoid taking him if you can.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 05/16/2022	Teli is strange. At the beginning of the semester, it seemed like he was a great professor, and that he and Cliff were keeping pace. However, it just got worse from there. The difficulty, quality, and wording of his assignments vary wildly (both in between assignments of the same type and assignments of different types). This made it extremely difficult to productively study for exams and quizzes because I'd never be quite sure how they would flow. Teli also fragments course information across 4 different platforms (ELMS, Piazza, Gradescope, and his own UMD web space), and not all of these platforms send notifications. For the platforms that do send notifications, it is so hard to keep track of them and I have felt like I'll receive them a long time from when they were relevant (I have definitely missed a regrade window because of this fact). Finally, the TAs all had their own slightly different ways of doing things and interpretation of assignments, which I can only assume comes from lack of communication. This made grading inconsistent with different rules being applied to different assignments. TLDR: Do not take CMSC250 with Teli unless it is your only choice.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/09/2022	Teli is a terrible professor. He doesn't teach us anything and the quizzes/HWs don't match up to what we're learning at all. However, I must concede that he is experienced and knows the content. The exams were also rather reasonable. Only take Teli if you have to. And if you do end up taking him, buckle up.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC426 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/04/2022	The class is quite interesting, but if you've taken CMSC422 there is a lot of repeated information, which led to a lot of boredom for me. Not his fault though, I just barely recommend this class if you've taken CMSC422. He also does derivations sometimes for some reason even though they never show up in the homework or exams. The biggest gripe I have is he only released rubrics for homework past the halfway point in the semester. You need those rubrics.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC250 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/28/2022	The best I can say about Teli is that he is a good guy and he really cares about his students. However, this is only the second time that he has taught 250 and it really shows. His course materials are at least half a decade old focusing on subjects none of the other 250 teachers teach anymore. Additionally, notes and materials from other teachers are useless since he sometimes just makes up his own proofs. Teli also doesn't provide any detailed notes or practice exam materials which is very frustrating. His lectures are difficult to follow skipping essential material and making substantial mistakes in all of his example problems. The worst part is that his test, quizzes, and homework are extremely difficult and is completely different from anything he teaches in class. His grading is brutal and the TA often grades incorrectly so it's important to request regrades. Overall, I hope Teli gets better as he gains more experience teaching this class, but I cannot recommend taking CMSC250 with Teli at this time.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC426 Anonymous 04/14/2022	To be honest, I've had alot of different teachers and taking this class is just not it. Expect to learn everything by yourself.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/10/2022	Good professor, class is pretty manageable if you go to OH religiously until you solve the HWs and understand them. Having some level of leetcode prep will help immensely as a lot of common problems are used in the class. I took the coding interview class at the same time and there were times when the HWs had the same problem.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/01/2022	Some general thoughts: Very, very prepared for lecture. Good lecturer, but covered unnecessary content at times. Sometimes he would spend a lot of time covering material that was never on an exam or homework. Homework was usually manageable, but occasionally ridiculous to the point where even the TAs didn't know how to do it (Dr. Teli didn't always provide the TAs with solutions in a timely manner). Really nice guy. Surprisingly generous curve. Painful weighting (each weekly homework 1.5%, each exam 25%, and final exam is whatever remains... yeah it's a lot of weight on the exams). Grading done by TAs (I think exclusively) so a lot of subjectivity. Some TAs were more forgiving with partial credit than others. Just a little frustrating. He's an absolute genius, which sometimes makes it difficult to grasp a topic from his explanations, but he (as other reviews mention) is really really good at answering questions until there's a solid understanding (both in lecture and office hours). Exams were frustrating because they use the same practice exams every semester and the practice rarely helps with the actual exam. It's kinda a matter of if you were lucky enough to study the right things at the right level of detail (it's not really possible to study everything at the highest level because he brushes over some of the really hard stuff). I'm normally good at studying "smart, not hard" but the exams in 351 really threw me for a loop. Thankfully he provides topic lists for each exam that help narrow it down a bit. Overall, I would say Dr. Teli could be a perfect professor if he ran the class slightly differently (which would really just mean making it a bit easier, providing hw solutions earlier on to the TAs, only covering relevant material, and giving more useful practice for exams).
Mohammad Nayeem Teli ENEE140 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/25/2021	Dr. Teli is a good professor for enee140. Would go over concepts with many, many example codes and always tried to make sure the class was following his lectures. After all of his examples, concepts were usually pretty clear to me, but he was always willing to take questions. Plenty of time to complete projects, which were 50% of the grade. Usually a quiz every other week. He would give worksheets to prepare for the quizzes, but would not provide answers, you had to go to the discussion for those. I found that a little annoying but I went to most of the discussions anyway so not a huge problem. There was one midterm and a final. He gave previous tests, with answers, that were very similar to the tests given so studying was fairly easy. Overall a pretty good professor, not exceptional, but I would still highly recommend for 140.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli ENEE140 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/23/2021	The course was straightforward, and Dr. Teli was an effective lecturer and wrote fair exams and projects. For an introductory level class his explanations were often a bit overcomplicated for some concepts, and some aspects that are more difficult for people learning to program he didn't cover in as much depth as would have been appreciated. That said, the class was relatively easy, and it was easy to do well if you asked for TA help when necessary.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2021	Teli is a nice and approachable professor. 351 is a pretty difficult class no matter who the professor is, but I thought Teli did a good job explaining concepts. The homeworks were appropriately difficult, although there were a few questions that required a lot of time to work through and understand. One thing I thought was really good was that he lets you work with other students as long as you cite their name. However, the exams are not remotely related to the actual class content. I took this class in Spring 2020 and I felt like the professor just took random leetcode problems off the internet and combined it with unecessarily complicated mathematical problems. There is a pretty fat curve on the class though (at least 10 points from what I remember) which is nice. My main issue with the class, which is partially just the fault of the way UMD has structured the 351 curriculum, is that it is not actually a useful algorithms class. A really huge focus of the class is calculating the exact runtimes of different algorithms, rather than actually focusing on how the algorithms actually work. Unfortunately its still a mandatory CS course, but if you want to actually learn algorithms, take CMSC451. I gave Teli 4 stars because he did his best given the circumstances, but CMSC351 barely deserves 1 star.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/04/2021	So you've made it to CMSC351. Congrats! Here's the deal: this course is difficult no matter which professor you take. Teli is a decent teacher and will happily answer questions in his OH or in class but the reason I believe this class is difficult is because of how few resources students are given to prepare for the 2 midterms and 1 final that collectively make up 83.5% of your final grade (yeah, you read that right). The homeworks are really good for helping you understand each topic at a very deep level but aren't good exam prep because the exams don't require you to understand the topics as thoroughly. Teli gives out practice exams that don't contain any relevant problems to the topics of the exam. They are completely useless. Students are forced to go into each exam without the slightest idea of how to prepare or what could be on it. We were given a list of topics for each exam but the list was so large it was practically impossible to study all the possible topics.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2021	Teli's work was relatively hard to follow online, but he was more than happy to answer any questions people had, and genuinely wanted people to understand the topics. Homeworks are almost copies of lecture work with numbers changed and occasionally new problems, but exams were almost entirely new problems somewhat based on lectures, and unrelated to practice exams.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC426 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2021	I took Teli for 351 and really enjoyed his class, but 426 left a lot to be desired. Lectures were hard to follow, and didn't relate much to the content that homeworks and exams required you to understand. The workload was also crazy high - there were 3 homeworks and 4 projects, all of which were very involved from an implementation standpoint. Although grading was fairly lax, getting something that felt like it worked was also very difficult, and it was hard to get an idea of whether your code was working as expected, which I understand is somewhat due to the nature of Computer Vision. On multiple assignments many students spent more than 30 hours trying to complete them. When students brought up these concerns they were largely ignored, and were told to 'work harder'.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Anonymous 04/27/2021	This review is based off of the fact that the course is being unfairly graded. The class average is noticeably higher than the past. I have heard from multiple mutual friends that they know other students in large cheating circles, and its likely the cause of the jump in the average. Instructors seem to be unaware of or ignoring this issue, and it is hurting the chances of honest students to pass. Previous semesters had cutoffs in the 40s and 50s, but current students are facing a 64% cutoff. This issue could be dealt with by grading this semester slightly different than normal and accounting for grade inflation with a lower cutoff, but it does not seem like they are going to. It is understandable that cheating is difficult to enforce online, but it should not lead to negative repercussions on students performing average under honest efforts. While the semester is not over, it seems like this issue is not going to change. I understand some people may read this review and assume I am just taking out my frustration, but I am not. This is a serious problem. I like Teli as a person, and he has better lecturing skills than other professors. This issue stems from the inability to properly proctor exams through Zoom. Adapting your class properly in times like these is important, and Teli just is not. I hope he proves me wrong, but as I said before, the way he is seemingly ignoring this issue is disappointing.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Anonymous 04/06/2021	Genuinely nice guy and very knowledgable about the material. However, the exams are complete garbage and have nothing to do with anything he teaches or the homework. Alot of the times it feels like he's not even teaching us anything useful.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/31/2021	One of the sweetest professors I've ever had. He will go through any step of an algorithm or analysis if a student is confused, no matter how trivial it is. This is especially helpful when covering topics that require a deeper conceptual understanding like analyzing the complexity of different variations of quicksort. The homeworks are good practice and if you can get your hands on any of the past exam questions, I highly recommend practicing with those as well. The exams can be difficult, but as long as you make sure you get all the easy points scattered throughout and dont get hung up on any one question, you're golden. There was also a heavy curve at the end of the class and Teli even extended the lower bound of the standard deviation to allow more students to get C's and pass (Math: final mean was 70.82 and std. dev was 11.78 so realistically, only grades above a 59.04 should have passed. But he extended it to allow students above a 54 to pass). All in all an incredible teacher and great guy!
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC320 Anonymous 01/12/2021	Not the worst CS professor I have had, but I wasn't impressed. Lectures often delved into hard to follow free-hand mathematical derivations that he would speed through (especially true for the latter half of the class that was focused on ML algorithms). I often felt confused after lectures and bored midway through. I found understanding in the material through reading lecture slides for some of the topics. Lecture slides for ML algorithms (ie linear regression, KNN, decision trees, random forests, etc) were confusing and I got a way better understanding by watching youtube videos on relevant topics. The midterm was ridiculously difficult which was annoying; the average was pretty low. Projects are interesting in my opinion; I really enjoyed the web scraping project. It was a great introduction to the topic. All projects were written in Python. I can say I gained a lot of worthwhile experience with relevant data science Python libraries such as NumPy, Pandas, scikit-learn, Matplotlib, and others. I would take this class again but I cannot say I recommend this professor.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Anonymous 12/24/2020	Had him last year, this review is not just for him but also for his TAs. Had a classmate who tried to get help on HW from a TA named Anton who barely helped and had a very condescending attitude, and at times it felt like all of the TAs were like that. Teli's lectures were simply writing math and proofs over white paper, and they were very dry and sometimes hard to read his handwriting. I wish there could have been additional material like slides. Even if you paid attention it seemed hard to figure detail was actually important and what was not. Exams are difficult, and homeworks/practice exams don't really help. What's worse is they are unwilling to provide you with any previous exams whatsoever because they claim it will give the answers away when in reality they could come up with new problems but are too lazy too. Exams felt more like an IQ test where you have to be really clever, and the grading is ruthless. He is extremely stubborn with his rubrics as well; even if both students and TAs feel you have a good argument for partial credit, he's still not gonna give you any points. If I could go back in time I would have taken Kruskal instead because at least his exams are based on his homeworks, unlike Teli and also he seems to be a more effective lecturer who gets his points across and separating them from the non-important points. Only pro I can say is he is nice, but don't make the same mistake I did and think that that means he is an effective teacher.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 12/15/2020	Teli gives good lectures (especially online where chat makes it easier to ask questions), but his exams are so brutal and completely different from the homework. And the practice exams. Yeah, the practice exams in this class are worthless. This is a class that needs some major changes, but in its current state, I suppose Teli is a good option.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/01/2020	He handled the switch to online classes very well and ended up using a fair grading system to adjust to the difficulties of the semester. He goes pretty fast through the material, so I always benefited more from the Panopto recording more than attending his live lecture. Besides for that, there was the usual 351 nonsense: some homework questions were nearly impossible to solve and you couldn't succeed unless you did extra studying on your own time by using outside resources such as Leetcode.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/25/2020	The class really sucks. I really hated it. It’s so focused on trivial algorithms and finding the EXACT runtime complexity that it’s just a math class. You don’t really have to worry much about algorithm design, just go on leetcode and see how basic divide and conquer/graph problems are solved and you’ll be able to slide by. Pay close attention to solving recurrences, construction induction, etc. because they’re pretty easy points on exams. In my opinion, the hardest part of the tests are trying to understand what the questions are asking, and sometimes the answers to some problems seem nearly impossible to get in the allotted time. Luckily, everyone goes through this struggle together so the final curve is humongous. Thankfully, Teli is a really good professor. He is so thorough and clear in his lectures, he answers everyones questions, and he really cares about your learning. He will skim over things sometimes, but chances are someone will raise their hand and ask for clarity, to which he’ll happily respond to. One importing thing though is that he records his lectures BUT not the lectures before tests, which are basically him going through any practice exam he gave us (which are hardly ever representative of an exam we’re given). TLDR: Teli good, 351 bad.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Anonymous 05/21/2020	Teli loves to focus on the intuition of algorithms and problem solving. Teli is a patient lecturer and often stops to ask if anyone has questions, and he's quite approachable in office hours. In lectures, he works through the book proofs, and in general the exams don't have too much to do with the homeworks. If you are a math wizard then you might get a little bored, in which case I would suggest Kruskal's class. If you just want to get by, Teli's emphasis on intuition will serve you well.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 01/10/2020	The content and class is a mess tbh. But you can tell that Teli cares and wants to make sure that every student gets the idea down. He uses most of lecture time going over the algebra of some analyses, which makes it easy for students to get lost during lecture and find it a pain to sit back down to review everything for the homeworks. Before the final, I was sitting around a 56%. After getting a 67% on the final (wasn't as bad as anticipated), I managed to get up to 60%, for a final grade of C+ (3% away from a B-!!) Moral of the story, if I can do it, you can too.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/30/2019	Teli isn't a perfect professor, but he genuinely cares about the content he is teaching and about student success. I found his lectures a little boring, but tests and homework felt fair.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/21/2019	ok as a lecturer, but i give this rating for the TA's and how he ran the class. Ridiculous and unforgiving grading for a class that has simple material. 48 was a C- this semester.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC426 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2019	His class is in Python, the projects are substantial, try to work in groups. Teli's explanations are pretty match-heavy, and it's easy to drown in the math. But he still gives his best effort to explain concepts.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 10/10/2019	Energetic and caring professor, but very sloppy. If you're after rigor, don't take Teli. He spends far more time in lecture reviewing algebra than teaching computer science, and when he does get around to explaining some theory, he mostly just waves his hands. That being said, he is likely an easy A. Take that as you will.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 10/01/2019	Great, engaging lecturer who put an emphasis on applying the algorithms. Also covered some algorithms not in Kruskal's. Funny guy who is easy to talk to. Curved about 8-10%
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/20/2019	Spring 19' was the first semester Teli didn't just use all of Kruskal's materials. The lectures were straightforward and the exams were fair and manageable.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Anonymous 04/11/2019	Terrible teacher, please avoid him. the courses are mess and exam are ridiculous. midterms are easy but final exam isn't the same level as the midterm.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/06/2019	Class is a mess, but thats 351 for ya. Teli is a good lecturer though and seems to car about his students.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/14/2019	He was the best professor of CMSC131 at the semester I took it. He is a nice guy. He allows using laptops for taking notes. He answers questions from the class. He is good at explaining various concepts clearly, using terminologies. Only he is not very good at making analogies. If you consider analogies essential for explaining concepts in computer science, you may not like his explanations.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/25/2018	Mohammad is a solid lecturer. He co-taught with Kruskal (same homeworks, tests, everything), so if you're looking to escape Kruskal, taking Mohammad won't help. He's a very nice guy and usually explains the material clearly and is well prepared. I also felt like he improved his lecturing over the course of the semester (this was his first semester at UMD). The course is terribly managed and run, but that's the fault of the TAs and Kruskal. If you go to lectures and put time and effort into fully understanding the homeworks and study for the exams, you should be OK on the exams.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC351 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/23/2018	He's a pretty good lecturer, explains concepts fairly clearly. His lecture style is writing out math with a pen on a document camera, so sometimes it gets messy with corrections/multiple pages. That being said, he does make a bunch of mistakes during class that take a while for him to catch, but overall he's good.
Mohammad Nayeem Teli CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/20/2018	Professor Nayeem is pretty good. He's always willing to answer questions and speaks in a clear voice. Occasionally, it seems as if he accidentally leaves out small details that are important to the concept he is explaining. I'd recommend that if you take him, don't be afraid to ask questions and keep doing so until you understand the concept, he is very approachable.